Tag Archives: SJP

Carrie: ‘Great love, what does that even mean?’
Charlotte: ‘It means a love that changes you, that shakes you to your core, after which you’re never the same.’

For many women of a certain generation, Sex and the City was a ‘great love’ – and, it can be argued, we were never the same. The show first came into my life when I was the impressionable age of 16. I wanted to be a writer, had no idea about boys and spent all my money on the latest boob tubes and pedal pushers to hit Miss Shop.

Sex and the City spoke to me, which, now that I think about it, was part of its problem – teenagers could relate to Carrie and, to a certain extent, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha. I can’t help but wonder what 30 something women thought of them back then.

These days, some of us talk about SATC like an ex that disappointed us but still holds a place in our hearts. So here, like a mix tape, is my inconsistent, messy and completely subjective list of every SATC episode ranked from worst to best, chronicling my love-hate relationship with a show that both influenced and infuriated me.

94. Ring a Ding Ding

Also known as the episode where Carrie has money problems, this is the one I love to hate. Following Carrie’s break up with Aidan, he gives her 30 days to come up with the money to buy her apartment. She suddenly realises she’s spent $40,000 on shoes and, after failing to get a bank loan, visits Big.

In other words, she goes to her ex – the very reason for her most recent break up – wearing what the Instagram account ‘Every Outfit on SATC’ informs me is ‘head-to-toe Chanel’ to childishly and helplessly say, ‘You know money, I want you to teach me what you know about money.’ I’m not exactly on top of my finances, but even I know the basic principles of saving and that spending $400 a pop on 100 Manolo Blahniks equals $40,000.

Kate Erbland articulates her rage at this episode a lot better and in more detail than me in her article for Film School Rejects. If you have a similar opinion, I suggest you check it out.

On a side note, wouldn’t Richard’s personal shopper have been fired anyway for writing ‘Love Richard’ on the card?

Cynthia Nixon recently admitted to the New York Times that while she’s proud of what Sex and the City did for women, she didn’t like how the first movie linked love and money when Big bought Carrie a penthouse apartment with a customised walk-in closet and, worse, when the audience cheered.

“I remember when we screened the first movie in London, when Mr. Big shows Carrie the closet he’s built for her and the entire audience clapped”, she told the Times. “I found that devastating. Maybe that’s a strong word, but I was disheartened. Because I thought, ‘Is this what women in the audience think true love is? A man who has enough money to buy you a walk-in closet?’”

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Now that Cynthia’s opened the floor to criticism of Sex and the City, I’d like to take the opportunity to talk about how I felt the last few episodes of the series did a massive disservice to all the work the previous seasons did to champion single women and how I, as one of those single women in her late teens/early 20s at the time the show aired, felt betrayed by how the series ended. It is a view I rarely share with others due to the fact that the series finale regularly tops ‘best of’ SATC countdowns and because of a conversation I had with someone years ago who asked me, ‘What? Don’t you like happy endings?’ Yes, of course I like happy endings in general, but why does a happy ending have to be synonymous with a conventional happily-ever-after?

“It’s turkey time – gobble, gobble”. No, we’re not talking about your Christmas dinner here. These words were immortalised by J.Lo in Gigli, a film that is commonly known – somewhat poetically – as one of the biggest cinematic turkeys of all time.

That crown, from what the blogosphere tells me, has now been snatched by Lindsay Lohan’s latest effort Liz & Dick. I’m set to watch this tele-movie treat for my birthday on Boxing Day so, in anticipation, I’ve revived my countdown of fat, juicy, camp as Christmas turkeys, originally published for GaydarRadio.com back in 2010. Where will the lovely Lilo fit when I’ve seen her car-crash (pun-intended) of a film? Watch this space!

Gigli
It’s difficult enough to pronounce the title of this movie, let alone actually watch it. Ben Affleck stars as a hitman with a heart of gold hired to kidnap a Baywatch-obsessed disabled man. Jennifer Lopez plays a lesbian, but it turns out that she is the type of lesbian Hollywood dreams are made of – she sleeps with men and talks dirty, using turkey analogies to do so, it seems.

Swept Away
I know all the words to the songs in Evita and I own a copy of Who’s That Girl. To put it another way, I’m not some fair-weather Madonna fan who claims to love her when ‘Give it 2 Me’ comes out only to disown her when ‘Celebration’ comes along. But I can’t argue with, well, pretty much everyone when they say Swept Away is a steaming hot pile of… turkey.

Madonna plays Amber, a Material Biatch on a cruise with her husband, but Goldie Hawn in Overboard she ain’t. Madge finds herself marooned on a desert island with Guiseppe, the cabin boy she treated like garbage, or her brother Christopher Ciccone if you believe his autobiography. What follows is a near-rape scene, some truly atrocious acting from Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s career being swept away much like Amber and Guiseppe. This is almost as bad as Madonna’s big screen effort with her first ex-husband, which conveniently brings us to…

Shanghai Surprise
Sean Penn stars as an Indiana Jones-type fortune hunter looking for a fast track out of China, while Madonna is a virginal missionary nurse seeking the curing powers of opium for her patients. Don’t laugh – this movie actually got made, which is perhaps the biggest “suprise” of them all.